International Marxist Tendency at the European Social Forum - a breakthrough

Last week comrades of the IMT from several
countries intervened very successfully at the European Social Forum
in Malmö, Sweden, finding an audience for their ideas and
making contacts with new layers of activists.

Last week the European Social Forum,
ESF, was held in Malmö, Sweden. The ESF is organised by a wide
range of organisations and it attracts everything from trade
unionists to greens, feminists, solidarity movements and sectarians.
For us it was an opportunity to spread our ideas and discuss with the
youth and labour activists that go to this forum in search of ideas.

Book stall of the IMT in the Latin American area

The
International Marxist Tendency, IMT, had an international team of
comrades from Sweden, Denmark, Britain, Poland, Russia and Slovakia
present. We had a stall in the Latin American area selling books,
journals and t-shirts from different countries. On one of the first
days of the ESF our presence was noted in a daily paper that covers
Southern Sweden. We were described as a Trotskyist organisation whose
leadership, under the name Militant Tendency, had tried to radicalise
the British Labour Party, and that we try to radicalise other social
democratic parties too. During the week they had a picture covering
half a page with our stall and quoting Will Roche, from the British
section of the IMT, "Things are going well for us; we are getting
more members all the time."

Because
there were so many organisations that proposed seminars, different
organisations had to merge their seminars. On Friday morning we
organised a seminar called "Marxism and altermondialism".
This was not our preferred title. "Altermondialism" is a vague
concept that can be described as alternative globalisation. The
meeting was organised by the IMT and Transform!, which is a network
of mostly European left parties' study groups including the Rosa
Luxemburg Stiftung and Espaces Marx (an ideological study group close
to the French Communist Party, PCF). The main speakers were Jorge
Martin, Elisabeth Gauthier, from Espaces Marx, the chairman of the
Austrian Communist party Walter Baier; P. K. Murthy, a trade-unionist
from India; someone from Attac in France; Aleksander Buzgalin from
Russia, and Samir Amin.

Jorge Martin speaking at the seminar “Marxism and altermondialism”

The
discussion was about the validity of Marxism and what its role is in
the anti-globalisation movement. Buzghalin spoke about how the ESF
was "a communist space in a communist time". That sounds good,
but what does it mean? Some of the speakers argued that the old
version of Marxism, probably meaning the Stalinist distortion of
Marxism, had failed. They argued for a new version of Marxism, saying
that since "capitalism has changed", Marxism must also change. A
lot of speakers were pessimistic about the "low level of
consciousness" and activity of ordinary people. Jorge Martin
explained that we cannot be pessimistic when we look at the
revolution in Latin America and the struggles that have been taking
place all over Europe and the rest of the world. He added that the
most relevant book to understand today's world is the Communist
Manifesto, and that the ideas of Marxism were more relevant than
ever. Martin Lööf from Sweden made an intervention in which
he said that all kinds of activity are welcome, but the activity of
the labour movement is decisive if one wants to change society.
Clearly most of those in the audience wanted a different world, and
they wanted to struggle, but they also needed revolutionary theory.
There was a good audience of about 80 people present. After the
meeting several people came up to our stall and wanted to have
contact with the IMT.

At
the same time, Wojtek Figiel, of the IMT in Poland, and also
representing the Polish trade union paper New
Popular Weekly spoke at a meeting about
trade unions in Eastern Europe. The meeting was organised by the
Polish Trade Union confederation OPZZ, the Swedish trade union
confederation LO, and Trade Unions from Latvia and Russia. Wojtek
spoke about the situation in Poland and the importance of the paper.
Jonathan Clyne, from Sweden, spoke about the common struggle of
workers from all countries and the need for the Swedish Trade Unions
to learn from the fighting spirit of the Polish youth who are working
with the New Popular Weekly,
instead of wasting members' strike funds on the stock market. A
trade union activist from Slovakia told a stirring story about her
struggle, despite terrible harassment (including attempts upon her
life), for workers' rights at a steel plant taken over by US Steel.

Panel of the seminar “Marxism and altermondialism”

In the
afternoon we took part in meeting of about 50 people together with
the League for the Fifth International about how to build a socialist
Europe. The first speaker was from the League and he spoke about how
capitalism is in crisis and how it is necessary to build a Europe
based on workers' power. Then Jonathan Clyne spoke for the IMT
explaining that he agreed with the need to abolish capitalism and
establish a democratic workers' state, but he added that this could
only be done by removing the biggest obstacle that was in the way of
this - the bureaucracy in the Labour Movement - and that this could
not be achieved by standing on the sidelines of the Labour Movement.
Fredrik Olson from the IMT in Denmark spoke about his experiences of
how the bureaucracy is united in their resistance against Marxists.
But far from being pessimistic, Fredrik explained that Marxist ideas
are getting a great echo in the Labour movement. Various attempts,
with pinpricks and anecdotes, by speakers from the League to question
our orientation passed the audience by. After the meeting we sold
some papers and collected some addresses from people interested in
further discussion.

On
Saturday we participated in the demonstration where we sold papers.
One comrade alone sold sixteen papers. We had a small bookstall at
the start and the end of the demonstration. In the evening we had a
meeting at our headquarters to evaluate the intervention of the IMT
at the ESF. Everybody agreed that this and that detail could have
been better. But the end result was very good with a high level of
enthusiasm, a high morale, good comradeship and a great deal of pride
in the IMT. The comrades who took part are now returning to their
countries and labour organisations determined to build the IMT on an
international scale. After this evaluation, we went to the Swedish
Left Party's social event and had a good time. The ESF continued on
Sunday where we sold more material and discussed with more people.

Our
intervention at the ESF shows that not only do we have good ideas and
good publications, but that there is also an audience for our ideas.
There is a layer of people inside and outside the labour movement who
are drawing the same conclusions as us. We made contacts with people
from Kenya, France, Greece, Finland, Norway, USA, Hungary, Slovakia,
Ukraine and more countries. But most importantly, this was a
breakthrough for the Swedish Marxists around the paperSocialisten.
For a long time we have struggled to build a Marxist tendency in
Sweden. There has been a favourable situation, but we have lacked the
resources to properly use the opportunities that have existed. Now we
can see that all the time and money spent in preparing the
organisation for the ESF intervention has been worth it. This will
have an impact on the Swedish labour movement as well as in our
neighbouring countries leading to the increased influence of Marxism
internationally.